


Variations on a Theme II

by BowlOfGlow



Series: Variations on a Theme [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Doomed Relationship, F/M, M/M, Magical Realism, Pining, Soulmates, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-16
Updated: 2014-02-16
Packaged: 2018-01-12 16:26:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1191957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BowlOfGlow/pseuds/BowlOfGlow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He shouldn't be surprised when he knew it was doomed from the very start.</p><p>(Soulmates AU.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Variations on a Theme II

**Author's Note:**

> Should probably read part 1 first, but well.

He knows this fight is bad. They’ve had fights before, fights during which they shouted at each other, slammed doors, stomped around the flat and threw things around the room.  
This isn’t one of those fights.  
John’s voice is frightening calm and there’s a deadly stillness in his face. Sherlock’s seen that expression before, though never directed at him. It’s a clear sign of danger. It’s still not enough to make him stop.  
There’s a part of him that’s full of spite, that wants to hurt and tear apart and knows precisely what buttons to push.  
There’s another part of him that knows the words he’s about to say can’t be forgotten or forgiven, that he should stop now while he still has the chance.  
It’s like watching a train derail in slow motion. The words spill out of him and he’s horrified by what he’s saying, but he can’t do anything to stop.

John stares at him, face pale, hands balled into fist.

“All right,” he says to no one in particular, and shakes in head in disbelief. “All right.”

He marches upstairs. Frozen, Sherlock hears the slamming of drawers, muffled sounds of clothes being flung on the floor. John walks out of his room with a bag slung over his shoulder. He walks out of 221B without saying a word, and Sherlock can do nothing but stand stupidly in the middle of the room, staring at the wreckage he’s caused.  
~

John’s never showed Sherlock the name on his hand, nor he has ever mentioned it. He always keeps it covered, usually by a brown leather fingerless glove.  
Sherlock knows the name written on his palm all the same. He knows because of the unusually high number of Marys John’s tried dating, he reads it in the way John’s face visibly lights up whenever they meet a Mary during a case or a client introduces herself as such. Transparent, really.  
How must it be like, to live life constantly hanging by such a thin thread of hope? Thank God he’ll never know. It seems unbearable.  
~

He spends the first day without John in a foggy daze, lying on the sofa and chain-smoking with stubborn defiance. He gets no real pleasure neither from the nicotine nor the empty audacity of the gesture – there’s no one who cares if he smokes in the flat anymore, and his short-lived triumph gives way to an ever growing sense of anxiety.  
The second day he spends pacing around the flat and smashing things. He is a ball of fury, burning with anger. He needs to lash out, destroy and break. He swipes beakers and petri dishes off the table, he shatters all the plates, the mugs and glasses, even the crystal bowl Harry bought John.  
Mrs Hudson doesn’t say anything, and doesn’t come up to try to placate him or tell him off. He’s both furious and relieved. 

 

John sends Harry to the flat to pick up a few things and clothes he’s left behind. That tells Sherlock everything he needs to know.

“Didn’t have the nerve to show his face, then?” he spats at Harry when she hovers at the door.

Harry laughs, looking sickened. “You are unbelievable, you are. I don’t know how he put up with you all this time.”

Sherlock snorts. “You’re hardly one to talk.”

Harry crosses the room to get to the stairs, and the pieces of shattered china and glass crunch under her shoes.

 

Mrs Hudson does come up on the fifth day. She brings up a tray with tea and a plate of biscuits, steps over Sherlock and puts the tray on the coffee table.

“Oh, Sherlock.” She tuts at him as she takes in the havoc in the room. “This has gone on long enough, don’t you think?”

“Leave,” Sherlock orders from where he’s sprawled on the floor.

“Is that blood?” Mrs Hudson asks, squinting at the splatters on the wall. Sherlock doesn’t reply. “Really Sherlock, what is John going to say–”

“John isn’t coming back,” Sherlock grits out.

Mrs Hudson sighs. “You had a fight, dear. Couples fight all the time, you mustn’t think– ”

“No, _you_ ,” Sherlock growls, springing up from the floor, pointing his finger, “you mustn’t think. Stop spewing nonsense, stop bothering me, stop _talking_ when it’s clear you have no idea what you’re even talking about.”

Mrs Hudson gapes at him, hands on her chest, and Sherlock suddenly wants to shake her but instead seizes the teacup from the tray and hurls it across the room. It misses the mirror by a mere inch and explodes against the wall, sending china all over the mantel. Mrs Hudson jumps and covers her mouth with a hand before hurrying out of the flat.  
Sherlock drops in in his chair, squeezing his eyes shut and pressing his fingers against his temples.  
He hates himself with an intensity that almost chokes him for a moment.

 

“Why are you doing this?” his brother had asked him years ago in an anguished tone, holding one of Sherlock’s syringes. The question had made Sherlock laugh, for it made as much sense as the one posed to the scorpion by the frog. There are things he can’t help doing, things about himself he cannot change.  
It’s the nature of venomous creatures, he supposes.

 

John meets Mary a few weeks after their row. It’s going to haunt Sherlock forever, the thought that he may be the one who pushed John into her path.  
Destruction by his own hands. It’s not something he’s unfamiliar with.  
~

John answers his phone after the third ring.

“You came to Baker Street two days ago,” Sherlock says. John clears his throat.

“Yes. Yes I did,” he replies.

“I saw you from the window,” Sherlock says, answering John’s unspoken question.

“Oh, right.”

“Why didn’t you come up?”

“I wasn’t sure you wanted to see me.”

“Then you’re an idiot,” Sherlock snaps, and immediately regrets it. “John– ”

“I’m seeing someone,” John says, talking over him.

“I know.”

“Have you been following me?” 

“Would it bother you if I had?”

“Oh, suddenly you care what I think,” John says and abruptly stops, as if reining himself in. “No, listen. I wanted… I just wanted to talk.”

“Okay.”

“I don’t mean now.” John laughs nervously. “I mean, in person. We can meet for a coffee or something.”

A _coffee_.

“You could come here.”

“No, I. I’d rather not.”

“John.”

“Hmm?”

“I’m sorry.”

There’s a long pause. “Yeah,” John says. “Me, too.”

It sounds sincere, but it’s not an apology. Sherlock’s not even sure they're talking about the same thing.  
~

John and Mary get married in May, and it’s a beautiful wedding. Sherlock even helps with the preparation, and gives a speech as John’s best man. John beams with pride and joy at his wife, and gets up half-way through Sherlock’s speech to hug him.  
Later, Harry walks to Sherlock as he watches the happy couple dance.

“I see you’re not one for dancing either,” she says. On the other side of the room, Lestrade is spinning Sally around as she laughs. Sherlock hums noncommittally.

Harry nods towards Mary and her brother. “I know how it feels,” she says. Sherlock turns and looks at her quizzically, and she raises her eyebrows as if he's failing to grasp something obvious.

“Clara, remember?” she says, as if that was supposed to make sense.

Sherlock holds up both of his hands, bare as always, showing her the palms that never bore any trace of a name. “I’m not sure what that’s supposed to mean. You’re talking to the freak, remember?”

Harry looks at him, with something in her eyes now that looks too similar to pity for Sherlock's taste. “You keep telling yourself that, if you like,” she says softly and walks away, leaving Sherlock to his thoughts. 

 

The thing is – and it may sound like a paradox but to Sherlock it makes perfect sense – it would be an heavier burden to bear if Mary wasn't as perfectly suited to John as she seems to be. Because Sherlock looks at them and sees two people head over heels in love, and John looks so _happy_ and how could Sherlock ever fault him for that?  
~

"Please," Sherlock begs one night, weeks before the wedding, when adrenaline is still running through them both and they get dangerously close to kissing and ruining it all. "Don't– If I can't ever be anything else. Let me still be your friend, at least."

He thinks of that night as the moment he stood on the edge of ruin and for once backed away.

"Sorry," John says, over and over, eyes full of guilt. "I don't know what came over me."  
~

There are still cases, and stakeouts, and criminals to chase. Sometimes John refuses to come, and sometimes he tags along and ends up sleeping on the sofa at 221B, and he makes tea in the morning and nags Sherlock about the experiments he still leaves all over the kitchen.  
Maybe it won't ever feel right, but it doesn't feel as wrong as it could have been.

**Author's Note:**

> Posting this before catching a train. Will probably be ashamed when I proofread again but I'm ridiculously impatient.


End file.
